Code Name: Infamy (Aviator Book 4) (26 page)

SS-332, Hudson Strait

Bullhead floated silently as the Brandon passed overhead. Skipper Donovan called for all ahead two thirds and went back to sonar. “Anything, gents?”

“Not really, I mean … never mind, sir.”

“No, talk to me. What’s up?”

“I swear I heard a second set of diesels behind the Brandon.”

“Plot that!” Donovan ducked out of sonar back to the bridge and whispered into the chief of the boat’s ear. “Chief, how many fish do we have in the tubes?”

“Two sir—”

The sonarman burst onto the bridge.

“Multiple tubes flooding!”

“Shit! Flood one and two, Chief. Make ’em hot!”

I-403

With their torpedo tubes flooding for launch, Tsukuba knew the Americans would be doing the same. The sound was distinctive and meant kill or be killed.

“All stop,” he ordered. “Switch to battery power and stand by for emergency dive.”

“Torpedo gyros stabilized and targeted; tubes one, two, three, and four flooded,” the report came back.

“Fire one and two at the submarine, three and four at the Corvette.”

“Torpedoes away.”

“Crash dive.”

SS 322

On the Bullhead, the report came: “Torpedoes in the water, constant bearing decreasing range!”

“Fire tubes one and two,” the captain ordered.

“Torpedoes away!”

“Very well, full right rudder, crash dive!”

I-403’s Type-93 torpedoes sped toward the Bullhead after turning 180 degrees. The large warheads struck the American sub, smashing into 332’s hull, breaching amid ship on impact. Frigid salt water flooded in. The tremendous weight pulled her lower.

I-403 plummeted to the depths of the Hudson Strait. The Sen Toku class submarines had a near fatal design flaw: the large vessel could lose control in a crash dive. If that were to happen, its oversized hull would collapse in on itself and drop straight to the bottom. I-403 was dangerously close to plummeting to its own death as the Bullhead began to sink toward the bottom of the strait.

But Tsukuba knew his ship’s strengths and weaknesses as well as he knew his own. Even with its immense size, and because the sail bridge was offset to the port side, the I-403 made an impressive turn to port. Its design allowed for sharp left turns but was nearly incapable of a turn to starboard. Having been launched for a target at periscope depth, Bullhead’s torpedoes sped by behind and above the 403.

“Full left rudder, target the middle Corvette,” Tsukuba said calmly.

“Steady up, heading zero two five. Fire tubes, five, six, seven, and eight. Reload all tubes. Set torpedoes for half speed and maximum range.”

RCS Brandon

A lookout ran in from his fly bridge post, as a panicked sonarman entered the bridge from his station just aft. Both men yelled the same thing simultaneously. “Torpedoes in the wake!”

Brandon’s skipper ordered a hard turn to port. I-403’s torpedoes were too close and did not arm, but Bullhead’s did. One of SS-332’s Mark 14 torpedoes struck Brandon amid ship splitting her hull. As Brandon floundered, her skipper got off a radio message to the commodore and then gave the order to abandon ship.

I-403

An explosion rocked the sub; as overhead, the Brandon began its journey to Davy Jones’ Locker. A secondary explosion confirmed Brandon’s fate was sealed; it was no longer a threat to Tsukuba’s command. He now had to save I-403 from itself.

“Up bow plane, level us at 100 meters—”

“Captain-San, the bow plane does not respond!” the helmsman yelled over the noise of battle.

“Give me a full blow on odd-numbered ballast tanks. Now!”

“Sir, we are losing control!”

“Calm yourself, helmsman. Ease the bow plane to neutral.”

“But, sir?”

“That is an order.”

SS-332

Waves swept up to the bridge, smashing sailors against bulkheads, knocking them out and drowning them as Bullhead took on water. Other sailors scrambled in a last-ditch effort to save her: hatches were sealed, an emergency blow to all tanks was ordered, and the bow plane was run to full bow up. It was all to no avail. At seven pounds per gallon, the ocean was winning. Its weight dragged the submarine lower and lower until, when it reached a depth of 423 feet, the Bullhead imploded. Compression of the air ignited the oxygen, and all hands had perished by the time the hull was fully crushed.

I-403

Complying with the suicidal order, the helmsman neutralized the bow plane. Tsukuba then ordered a few degrees of bow up and waited patiently for the input to take effect; 403 was reaching a dangerous depth. But the helmsman’s initial control input had been too large, and, in effect, he had stalled the flow of water across the plane negating the input.

“Depth approaching maximum,” the OOD called out.

“Helmsman, two more degrees of bow up, and no more,” Tsukuba demanded.

Because of its size, the I-400 class could carry the larger and more deadly Type-93, and, in anticipation of the other Corvette’s maneuvers, Tsukuba launched a full spread of eight directly at the Royal Canadian Navy’s Kamsack. His crew had performed magnificently under enormous pressure, and he kept the pressure up, ordering another eight Type-93 torpedoes released at full speed, timed to arrive with the first volley of eight. Twenty in total had been fired at the Corvette. Now it was time to turn his attention to the task at hand.

As rivets and bolts popped around the ship and icy water began to spray into the sub, I-403’s hull was beginning to fail. Tsukuba calmly gave his orders: “Even ballast tanks, give me a slow blow.”

Atsugi and Wolf stood silently observing Tsukuba. He turned to them. “Get to your weapon systems. Prepare them for launch.”

CHAPTER 33

02:08 Local, 21 August, 1945 (07:08 GMT, 21AUG)

Commodore’s Flag Ship, RCS Kamsack, Hudson Strait

Commodore Howe watched as the Brandon burned and then disappeared on the horizon. Bedlam had broken out on his bridge—sonar reported a submarine breaking up and torpedoes in the water. Type-93, Japanese. His lookouts strained to see the tell-tale signs of approaching death. Yet, he had to get to the Brandon. The survivors would not last long in the near freezing water. An iceberg five miles off his starboard bow suddenly exploded. One of the Type-93 torpedoes had hit it.

Commodore Howe ordered a turn away, back to a heading of east—just as Captain Tsukuba had assumed before he launched the last full spread of eight torpedoes. Of the twenty that had been fired at the Kamsack, one found its mark.

Adak

Out of breath, Jonesy sprinted into the operations room with a message from Commodore Howe. Tears streamed down his face as he read:

“From the RCS Kamsack: Corvette Alpha and Bravo strike damage, sonar reports a submarine breaking up in the strait; confirmed to be SS-332 after another launch of Type-93 torpedoes. Corvette Charlie turning into the fight. Howe sends.”

Spike sank into his chair, stunned, silent. Everything in his brain screamed:
We can’t lose! We can’t lose!
This was the most crucial fight of his life. He hardly registered Irish yelling into the phone for the bombers to drop everything they had between the burning oil slicks from the Corvettes and the entrance to the Labrador Sea.

Chief Stenstrum scratched the Brandon, Kamsack, and Bullhead from the plot. He marked over them with red Xs. He stood over the chart, taking in the entire tactical situation. He plotted the new depth bomb grid; it was anchored just off of Akpatok Island in the mouth of Ungave Bay and stretched thirty miles toward Cape Chidley, the southern gate of the entrance to the Hudson Strait.

Long minutes wound around the clock. Seconds lost their definition of measurement. Defeat was now the only thing present. To the team’s utter disbelief, Corvette Charlie had been taken out of the fight by an errant bomber. It dropped too close to the small ship that was running midnight, with lights out. The concussion took out its rudder, and now the RCS Camrose was dead in the water. On top of the Camrose the chief marked DIW.

An hour passed. The patrol craft bombers, PB4Ys, had swept the area of the grid with their powerful spotlights and radar. There was no sign of I-403 or of any wreckage. Irish sent all of the bombers to NAS Brunswick to rearm in the hopes they might be able to catch I-403 at the mouth of the Hudson Strait, before it made open ocean.

Spike set down a cold cup of coffee and then dropped a cigarette into it. He walked to the plot and started a numbered list on the left side of it, in heavy black marker. Everyone watched as he shook the last cigarette out of a pack and then crumbled it. His Zippo backlit his eyes; a fierce determination glared at everyone in the room when he spoke.

“We start over now, from the beginning. What do we have? What are we up against? And what is our time line? I want all the details here.”

He pointed to his empty list. After ten minutes it was full: I-403 armament, aircraft range, etc. All the facts and assumptions were on the chart.

Avery mumbled to himself, “That’s the luckiest sub commander I’ve ever been up against.”

Chief Stenstrum stood up and with purpose moved to the list. “No, no, sir, I don’t think so. He planned that attack.”

Spike pivoted on his heel and demanded an explanation.

“Well, sir, look at the big picture. He waited for the Corvettes. He could have been to open sea. But he waited; why?”

Avery spoke up. “He guessed we had a gatekeeper. Like I said, lucky.”

Spike ignored him and turned his full attention to the chief.

“Not lucky, smart. He planned the attack for that exact spot, just off Akpatok Island. The island protected his southern flank. He killed not only 332 and the Brandon, but he shot the Kamsack on his northern flank, too. And—”

“That was a very lucky shot!” demanded Avery.

“And?” Spike asked.

“He shot all his fish, every torpedo he carried. This was his last play.”

“But he is nowhere near a launch ring …”

Irish cut off Spike with a cuss-laced explosion as he looked at the Seiran’s range annotated on the list. “Son of a bitch! That aircraft range has got to be combat range! Out and back! But those planes aren’t going back.”

“What?” Spike demanded and then spun to Jeff. “Double the range ring.”

Jeff quickly drew a 1,284 nautical mile semicircle from south of New York City to the Canadian coast just below the entrance of the Hudson Strait. Then another from Norfolk; he then highlighted the overlapping areas.

“Still a long way off,” Spike said.

“What are we missing, Chief?”

The chief turned away from the list and back to the master plot. He took the calipers from Jeff and finished a complete circle from New York and then asked Spike, “What is the most strategically important city to the American war effort?”

“Detroit, for its production of tanks, aircraft, everything. Why?”

Chief Stenstrum nodded as he drew a ring from Detroit. He shaded in where the two intersected—the bottom of Ungave Bay.

04:13 Local, 21 August, 1945 (09:13 GMT, 21AUG)

I-403, Ungave Bay

At flank speed, I-403 continued to move due south, deeper into Ungave Bay and away from the mayhem it had unleashed in the Hudson Strait. Wolf and Atsugi had readied the weapons and Seiran fighters. The M6A1 Seiran’s oil and radiator coolant were being preheated for immediate launch. Tsukuba touched a plotted point at the bottom of Ungave Bay.

“Gentlemen, a change of plans. We shall be within the launch envelope for our primary and secondary targets within the hour. No doubt you have surmised we are on borrowed time. A wave of Allied assets will be upon us by daylight. We have reached a logical conclusion. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of changing our second target from Norfolk to Detroit, America’s center of war production.”

Tsukuba pointed out each route and the target cities. Both men nodded in agreement. Time had forced a go/no go decision for Infamy. It would be go.

“Good luck, Atsugi.” Tsukuba bowed to Atsugi, knowing he would never see him again.

Adak

Adrenalin shot through Spike’s veins, pumping him full of renewed energy and focus. He barked orders and pulled together a tactical plan seemingly instantaneously.

“Jonesy, pass to the Suwannee in the clear: Target southern Ungave Bay LAT/LONG 57:00 north, 67:00 west. Submarine-launched fighters are targeting Big Apple and Motown. Proceed at maximum speed possible.”